A few days after Ell/Nikki won the 56th Eurovision Song Contest 2011 for Azerbaijan, it’s time to look at the results a bit.

Semi 1 songs vs. Semi 2 songs

Songs that proceeded from Semi 2 generally were more successful than songs from Semi 1. In the top 10, we have 3 entries from the 1st semifinal (including the winner), and 5 entries from 2nd. The bottom 10 consists of more Semi 1 finalists (6) than those from Semi 2 (3). By the way, Semi 1 had both, the future winning song (Azerbaijan) and the song that came last in the final (Switzerland).

The Big Five

France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom were rather successful this year, having 3 songs in the top half, and 2 of them in the Top 10. If we ignore returning Italy, the old Big 4 weren’t generally more or less successful than in 2010 (Ger 1, Fra 12, Spa 15, UK 25) and 2009 (UK 5, Fra 8, Ger 20, Spa 23).

Winners

Now let’s see which countries were much more successful than in the years before.

Sweden (3rd) returns to the Top 3 after 12 years, last with Charlotte Nilsson in 1999 (winner). Especially in the past 4 years, the country was very unlucky finishing  18, 18, 21 and missing the final in 2010 for the first time ever.

Ireland (8th) has its best result since the year 2000 with Eamonn Toal (6th). Needless to say, “Lipstick” is Ireland’s most successful uptempo pop song ever at Eurovision. No wonder, since Ireland never really had such a song in the race – “Love”, “Terminal 3” and “Horoscopes” not really being uptempo pop, but the closest it could get, out of the gazillions of ballads and midtempo songs they sent.

Without hardly anyone noticing, Slovenia (13th) got its best result since 2001 (Energy, 7th). Since the semifinal system got established in 2004, it was only the 2nd time that Slovenia reached the final, last time being with Alenka Gotar in 2007. Slovenia also reached its highest amount of points ever (96).

Despite the poor result in the final, Austria (18th) has its best result since Alf Poier 2003 (6th). In 2004 they finished 21st in the final, and then 21st and 27th respectively in the 2005 and 2007 semi.

Losers

A couple of countries had a sudden loss in terms of Eurovision success.

Turkey showed that it doesn’t have a guaranteed place in the final, despite nearly everyone believing this before Tuesday Night. Yüksek Sadakat are the very first representatives of Turkey that didn’t manage to enter the final. Before the semifinal got introduced in 2004, Turkey’s worst result was 22nd (Seyyal Taner 1987).

Russia used to be the other country that people projected eternal success on, proving them wrong by Alexej Vorobjov finishing only 16th. Despite the usual russian heavy promotion of the entry, and the hype around RedOne being the composer, “Get You” is Russia’s worst result since 1995 (Filip Kirkorov, 17th).

Armenia missed the final for the first time ever since its debut in 2006, Albania didn’t reach the final for the first time since 2007 (Hear My Plea), the same goes for Norway, Portugal and Israel. Belarus, Belgium and Cyprus are back being stuck in the semis after appearing in the final last year.

Consistent

Azerbaijan, Germany, Greece, Ukraine, Georgia and Denmark have been in the Top 10 for the 2nd successive year. Azerbaijan never left the Top 10 ever since its debut in 2008, Greece stays in the Top 10 for 8th year in a row, a sequence of success that hardly any Eurovision country ever reached. Rare examples being France in the 60s and the United Kingdom in various decades.

Running Order

Which impact did the running order have on the final results? Let’s see how many points the 5 parts á 5 songs of the lineup achieved.

Part 1 (Finland – Hungary): 432 points

Part 2 (Ireland – Russia): 545 points

Part 3 (France – Moldova): 487 points, including Switzerland (last place)

Part 4 (Germany – Slovenia): 565 points, including Azerbaijan (winner)

Part 5 (Iceland – Georgia): 465 points

This should show, that the start position doesn’t necessarily mean less or more attention. In each of the 3 mid segments between spot 6 and 20, more points were being cast than in the popular segment of the last 5 songs.

However, the last time that a song won from a spot earlier than part 4 was Ukraine 2004 from position 10 (out of 24 songs), and before, Turkey 2003 from position 4 (out of 26 songs).